Coup de Grace and Healing spells? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Coup de Grace and Healing spells? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mythknight
01-26-07, 06:15 PM Alright I had to finally look for myself since my buddy has been telling me this should be possible. Now my argument is that it is in no way possible but I thought someone on the boards might help. I hope this is in the right section. If this has already been answered can someone point me to the link?

So here is what my friend was saying about coup de grace and healing spells.

"Here's some food for thought. since you can crit with spells, is there any reason you can think of for why you would not be able to crit with healing spells as well.

The idea I'm wrestling with is the concept of doing coup-de-grace healing to willing target's. Granted it would provoke Attacks of opportunity if tried in combat, but out of combat........

No where in any of the rules does it state that cure/cause spells can not crit. Thier normal targets (undead) just can't be critted. They do though fall within the category of weapon like spells which can crit.

It's one of those RAW (Rules As Written) issues.
When you target a willing opponent there is still technically an attack roll. A willing opponent just becomes AC=0 to you. So effectively no roll is required. Most just forgoe the roll altogether. They essentially take 10. Taking-10 though forgoes your chance to miss or crit.

With that said in order to crit with a heal you have to go ahead and roll it I know it sounds silly but since thier AC-0 the only way you can miss in on a natural 1. This works fine since the only way you can crit is on a naturla 20 anyway.

This takes a standard action to do just as dilivering any touch spell would. In order to do a coup-de-grace though would take a round and a half. 1 round to cast the spell, then another full round action to deliver the coup-de-grace. Both actions provoke attakcs of opportunity.

On to the next step. Someone pointed out that you can't crit with a heal spell. Actually you can. If your target is susceptable to positive energy, (ie they're a negative energy creature) and they're not imune to crit damage then they can be critted with a heal spell.

I am mostly basing this off the fact that you can be crited with a harm spell. Which is the exact same spell with the damage type reversed.

I'm about to go see where the argument is currently. When I left we were going into the nature of what is defined as damage vs what is defined as healing.

Here's my real proposal for thought. Healing and Damage are the same thing.

The only difference between a harm and a heal spell is the negative or positive energy put forth by the spell. They should have the same effect on a target going both ways.

If you think of healing as negative damage instead of healing is healing and damage is damage this is much easier to grasp.

The mechanics for delivering a cure spell is the same as a harm."

I know this got lengthy but I did not want to butcher what he said and come back telling me that I wrote it up all wrong. Thank you for your time DnD community.
Arturius1
01-26-07, 06:22 PM I took part in a discussion about this a while ago, specifically about a warlock attack I believe. You can't coup de grace or crit with a healing spell.
sunkist_junky
01-26-07, 06:33 PM the coup de grace thing seems weird to me..but i see no reason why it can't be crit'ed....it requires an attack roll...any spell that has an attack roll can have it's damage doubled on the result of a natural 20 from the attack roll...sop why can't a positive energy damage spell (i.e a healing spell) be criticalled
tarkin
01-26-07, 06:51 PM Logic
Because a Crit represents apply damage to a specific location that is vunerable to it.

That is, you hit them in the balls, the eyes, the jugular.

Healing automatically already goes to the specific area that it is most needed in.

That is, if I take a sword and cut your ONCE, in your arm, then I heal you, you get the ENTIRE healing, all of which goes directly to your arm.

Game Rule Explanation

The crit rules say: A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together.

It does not say "damage or healing".

Therefore you can only crit damage.

Healing is not damage. If you don't understand that, come over to my house in New York and I will heal you in real life.

Possible fallacy
Those of you that disagree are doing what I call the "Possible Fallacy".

Basically it is where you say "The rules could possibly be interpreted as X and I want X, so I am going to do X".
sunkist_junky
01-26-07, 06:53 PM healing is positive energy damage
larrycrack
01-26-07, 06:56 PM I'm going to agree with Tarkin. Damage can critical, healing cannot.

Here is an example, including spells:

"If a ray spell deals damage, you can score a critical hit just as if it were a weapon. A ray spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit."

Healing from a spell is not damage in any way, shape or form.
larrycrack
01-26-07, 07:01 PM healing is positive energy damage

Only to those powered by negative energy healing. In the case of a creature which is damaged instead of cured by a cure spell and is critable (i.e. not undead), I may ad-hoc in favor of a critical.

I stand by the rule otherwise. Cure Light, et al. say they cure damage, not damage in itself.
Mythknight
01-26-07, 07:19 PM Now my concern is more with the coup de grace functionality he was trying for than the actual crit. In my opinion (read oinion), the healing spell could possibly crit if the healer was willing to make the attack roll on someone when they cast the spell. Now the person is letting them hit so in essence their AC is 0 which means that a natural 1 is the only way they could miss, and blow the spell by the way. Also, a natural 20 is the only way they could "crit" and roll damage twice. This would make sense to me.

A coup de grace says specifically in it's description that it is with a melee weapon, bow or crossbow to an adjacent opponent. This does not state anything about spells. In no way shape or form can I think of a spell that says it can be used to coup de grace. This includes curing spells.

So I guess there are two questions really.

1. Could healing spells crit if the healer decided to actually make an attack roll? (I gave you my reasoning)

2.If they could crit, in what possible world would they be allowed to coup de grace?

Thank you for productive responses.
Loki5654
01-26-07, 07:27 PM 1. Could healing spells crit if the healer decided to actually make an attack roll? (I gave you my reasoning).The SRD on critical hits (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#criticalHits) says:A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once...Cure Light Wounds (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/cureLightWounds.htm) says:Cure Light Wounds
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Drd 1, Healing 1, Pal 1, Rgr 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will half (harmless); see text
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless); see text

When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5).

Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply spell resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.Since the Cure spells cure damage and don't deal damage, they are not valid for critical hits. It doesn't matter how many attack rolls you make with it, you don't crit on healing.
V8122
01-26-07, 07:36 PM Hmm... thats a hard one... well, you are the DM. So, if you can think of a logical reason why you can apply healing to a specific area and do damage then, yes, you could. If you actually wanted to increase healing by critical, then don't call it a critical hit. Critical hit (noun): The process of dealing extra damage by hitting a specific area of the body.

:confused: Not sure what you would call it though...
Knight0
01-26-07, 07:46 PM Since its a touch attack i would say it crits. Its just that the majority of creatures are healed by positive energy instead of being killed by it but remember positive energy can still kill not only undead but living creatures (Positive energy plane). However a coup de grace can only be delivered by a melee weapon or a xbow. cure light wounds is neither of these .: it can not be used as a coup de grace.
GorTeX
01-26-07, 08:14 PM However a coup de grace can only be delivered by a melee weapon or a xbow.

Hmm. SRD says Melee weapon, Bow or Crossbow.

Recenlty, my DM ruled that it was only a Melee weapon or an XBow...where does this idea come from if Bow is specifically stated as being one of the weapons you can use?
HellflameArcanite
01-26-07, 08:28 PM I like it.
penchant
01-26-07, 09:46 PM I would say no for all the reasons stated above. IF you decided to allow crits on healing, I would say that it is not unbalanced, since you trade a 5% change of doing double healing for a 5% chance of spell fizzle. The coup de gras is totally wrong, however since it does not do damage. If someone has infinite hit points, a coup de gras still kills them.
Sergikins
01-26-07, 09:58 PM Hmm. SRD says Melee weapon, Bow or Crossbow.

Recenlty, my DM ruled that it was only a Melee weapon or an XBow...where does this idea come from if Bow is specifically stated as being one of the weapons you can use?

I'm not sure, but i do remeber a particular situation in which my wizard grabbed a soldier by the throat and readied a stilled scorching ray for his throat in case he struggled (he had cast hold person a round earlier so he could move into the perfect postion. he was also planning this so he had stilled the ray) the DM ruled it as being acceptable for a coup de grace, mostly because, lets be seirous, blasting a persons throat out with 1200 degrees of heat is pretty much going to kill anyone.
runestar
01-26-07, 10:11 PM That's like saying that a 20th lv rogue who sneak attacks a PC with a wand of cure minor wounds heals 10d6 +1 hp...:confused:
Mythknight
01-26-07, 11:39 PM That's like saying that a 20th lv rogue who sneak attacks a PC with a wand of cure minor wounds heals 10d6 +1 hp...:confused:

That is just plain stupid. Cure spells do positive energy damage. It just happens we accept positive energy as healing. Your rogue does lethal damage, or subdual if you use that type of weapon. In your case it would be 1d8+1 healing done plus 10d6 real damage and that would freaking hurt :)

Please do not try to coup de grace heal me with you rogue and wand. Thank you :cool:

Other than that great posts everyone. I think I am getting good ammo for this argument.
Knight0
01-27-07, 04:31 AM i meant for the x in xbow to be taken as Long Short and cross.
Shatteredtower
01-27-07, 12:49 PM Cure spells do positive energy damage.Only to creatures that are damaged by the positive energy effect of a cure spell. If they are not, then the spell is not, for purposes involving that creature, a damage-causing spell.

Runestar's point is valid, however. If you allow a cure spell to "crit-heal", why wouldn't you allow a rogue to gain the sneak attack benefit? When you're applying a crit with a weapon, it's about scoring a hit against a particularly vital area according to the PHB glossary, which rogues just happen to be much better at doing in the right circumstances (as per the description of the sneak attack ability on pg 50 of the PHB). If the extra damage in both cases comes from striking a vital area, why would it be any different for healing magic if critical hits applied?

This points out one more reason to not allow the "curative coup de grace". Not only is it an automatic critical (with sneak attack), but the target gets a saving throw to avoid being killed outright. If applied to healing, is it an automatic critical with a saving throw to avoid full hit point restoration? If not, you have to explain why it's not having the exact opposite effect of a damage-based coup de grace. However, if it is, then parties are saving a fortune in healing cost, because any creature can voluntarily fail any given saving throw. This means that a four member party with a 375 gp wand of cure minor wounds (half that if they make it themselves) can fully heal up after the fight, regardless of how badly they'd been wounded. The entire party could be sitting at -9 hp so long as the one using the wand had the Die Hard feat, and be back up to their 100+ hp totals in a matter of rounds.

Obviously, this is not likely to happen in the middle of combat, but you've just made the post-combat clean-up a lot easier on parties if you allow this.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mythknight 01-26-07, 06:15 PM	Alright I had to finally look for myself since my buddy has been telling me this should be possible. Now my argument is that it is in no way possible but I thought someone on the boards might help. I hope this is in the right section. If this has already been answered can someone point me to the link? So here is what my friend was saying about coup de grace and healing spells. "Here's some food for thought. since you can crit with spells, is there any reason you can think of for why you would not be able to crit with healing spells as well. The idea I'm wrestling with is the concept of doing coup-de-grace healing to willing target's. Granted it would provoke Attacks of opportunity if tried in combat, but out of combat........ No where in any of the rules does it state that cure/cause spells can not crit. Thier normal targets (undead) just can't be critted. They do though fall within the category of weapon like spells which can crit. It's one of those RAW (Rules As Written) issues. When you target a willing opponent there is still technically an attack roll. A willing opponent just becomes AC=0 to you. So effectively no roll is required. Most just forgoe the roll altogether. They essentially take 10. Taking-10 though forgoes your chance to miss or crit. With that said in order to crit with a heal you have to go ahead and roll it I know it sounds silly but since thier AC-0 the only way you can miss in on a natural 1. This works fine since the only way you can crit is on a naturla 20 anyway. This takes a standard action to do just as dilivering any touch spell would. In order to do a coup-de-grace though would take a round and a half. 1 round to cast the spell, then another full round action to deliver the coup-de-grace. Both actions provoke attakcs of opportunity. On to the next step. Someone pointed out that you can't crit with a heal spell. Actually you can. If your target is susceptable to positive energy, (ie they're a negative energy creature) and they're not imune to crit damage then they can be critted with a heal spell. I am mostly basing this off the fact that you can be crited with a harm spell. Which is the exact same spell with the damage type reversed. I'm about to go see where the argument is currently. When I left we were going into the nature of what is defined as damage vs what is defined as healing. Here's my real proposal for thought. Healing and Damage are the same thing. The only difference between a harm and a heal spell is the negative or positive energy put forth by the spell. They should have the same effect on a target going both ways. If you think of healing as negative damage instead of healing is healing and damage is damage this is much easier to grasp. The mechanics for delivering a cure spell is the same as a harm." I know this got lengthy but I did not want to butcher what he said and come back telling me that I wrote it up all wrong. Thank you for your time DnD community.
Arturius1 01-26-07, 06:22 PM	I took part in a discussion about this a while ago, specifically about a warlock attack I believe. You can't coup de grace or crit with a healing spell.
sunkist_junky 01-26-07, 06:33 PM	the coup de grace thing seems weird to me..but i see no reason why it can't be crit'ed....it requires an attack roll...any spell that has an attack roll can have it's damage doubled on the result of a natural 20 from the attack roll...sop why can't a positive energy damage spell (i.e a healing spell) be criticalled
tarkin 01-26-07, 06:51 PM	Logic Because a Crit represents apply damage to a specific location that is vunerable to it. That is, you hit them in the balls, the eyes, the jugular. Healing automatically already goes to the specific area that it is most needed in. That is, if I take a sword and cut your ONCE, in your arm, then I heal you, you get the ENTIRE healing, all of which goes directly to your arm. Game Rule Explanation The crit rules say: A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. It does not say "damage or healing". Therefore you can only crit damage. Healing is not damage. If you don't understand that, come over to my house in New York and I will heal you in real life. Possible fallacy Those of you that disagree are doing what I call the "Possible Fallacy". Basically it is where you say "The rules could possibly be interpreted as X and I want X, so I am going to do X".
sunkist_junky 01-26-07, 06:53 PM	healing is positive energy damage
larrycrack 01-26-07, 06:56 PM	I'm going to agree with Tarkin. Damage can critical, healing cannot. Here is an example, including spells: "If a ray spell deals damage, you can score a critical hit just as if it were a weapon. A ray spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit." Healing from a spell is not damage in any way, shape or form.
larrycrack 01-26-07, 07:01 PM	healing is positive energy damage Only to those powered by negative energy healing. In the case of a creature which is damaged instead of cured by a cure spell and is critable (i.e. not undead), I may ad-hoc in favor of a critical. I stand by the rule otherwise. Cure Light, et al. say they cure damage, not damage in itself.
Mythknight 01-26-07, 07:19 PM	Now my concern is more with the coup de grace functionality he was trying for than the actual crit. In my opinion (read oinion), the healing spell could possibly crit if the healer was willing to make the attack roll on someone when they cast the spell. Now the person is letting them hit so in essence their AC is 0 which means that a natural 1 is the only way they could miss, and blow the spell by the way. Also, a natural 20 is the only way they could "crit" and roll damage twice. This would make sense to me. A coup de grace says specifically in it's description that it is with a melee weapon, bow or crossbow to an adjacent opponent. This does not state anything about spells. In no way shape or form can I think of a spell that says it can be used to coup de grace. This includes curing spells. So I guess there are two questions really. 1. Could healing spells crit if the healer decided to actually make an attack roll? (I gave you my reasoning) 2.If they could crit, in what possible world would they be allowed to coup de grace? Thank you for productive responses.
Loki5654 01-26-07, 07:27 PM	1. Could healing spells crit if the healer decided to actually make an attack roll? (I gave you my reasoning).The SRD on critical hits (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#criticalHits) says:A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once...Cure Light Wounds (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/cureLightWounds.htm) says:Cure Light Wounds Conjuration (Healing) Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Drd 1, Healing 1, Pal 1, Rgr 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Touch Target: Creature touched Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: Will half (harmless); see text Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless); see text When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply spell resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.Since the Cure spells cure damage and don't deal damage, they are not valid for critical hits. It doesn't matter how many attack rolls you make with it, you don't crit on healing.
V8122 01-26-07, 07:36 PM	Hmm... thats a hard one... well, you are the DM. So, if you can think of a logical reason why you can apply healing to a specific area and do damage then, yes, you could. If you actually wanted to increase healing by critical, then don't call it a critical hit. Critical hit (noun): The process of dealing extra damage by hitting a specific area of the body. :confused: Not sure what you would call it though...
Knight0 01-26-07, 07:46 PM	Since its a touch attack i would say it crits. Its just that the majority of creatures are healed by positive energy instead of being killed by it but remember positive energy can still kill not only undead but living creatures (Positive energy plane). However a coup de grace can only be delivered by a melee weapon or a xbow. cure light wounds is neither of these .: it can not be used as a coup de grace.
GorTeX 01-26-07, 08:14 PM	However a coup de grace can only be delivered by a melee weapon or a xbow. Hmm. SRD says Melee weapon, Bow or Crossbow. Recenlty, my DM ruled that it was only a Melee weapon or an XBow...where does this idea come from if Bow is specifically stated as being one of the weapons you can use?
HellflameArcanite 01-26-07, 08:28 PM	I like it.
penchant 01-26-07, 09:46 PM	I would say no for all the reasons stated above. IF you decided to allow crits on healing, I would say that it is not unbalanced, since you trade a 5% change of doing double healing for a 5% chance of spell fizzle. The coup de gras is totally wrong, however since it does not do damage. If someone has infinite hit points, a coup de gras still kills them.
Sergikins 01-26-07, 09:58 PM	Hmm. SRD says Melee weapon, Bow or Crossbow. Recenlty, my DM ruled that it was only a Melee weapon or an XBow...where does this idea come from if Bow is specifically stated as being one of the weapons you can use? I'm not sure, but i do remeber a particular situation in which my wizard grabbed a soldier by the throat and readied a stilled scorching ray for his throat in case he struggled (he had cast hold person a round earlier so he could move into the perfect postion. he was also planning this so he had stilled the ray) the DM ruled it as being acceptable for a coup de grace, mostly because, lets be seirous, blasting a persons throat out with 1200 degrees of heat is pretty much going to kill anyone.
runestar 01-26-07, 10:11 PM	That's like saying that a 20th lv rogue who sneak attacks a PC with a wand of cure minor wounds heals 10d6 +1 hp...:confused:
Mythknight 01-26-07, 11:39 PM	That's like saying that a 20th lv rogue who sneak attacks a PC with a wand of cure minor wounds heals 10d6 +1 hp...:confused: That is just plain stupid. Cure spells do positive energy damage. It just happens we accept positive energy as healing. Your rogue does lethal damage, or subdual if you use that type of weapon. In your case it would be 1d8+1 healing done plus 10d6 real damage and that would freaking hurt :) Please do not try to coup de grace heal me with you rogue and wand. Thank you :cool: Other than that great posts everyone. I think I am getting good ammo for this argument.
Knight0 01-27-07, 04:31 AM	i meant for the x in xbow to be taken as Long Short and cross.
Shatteredtower 01-27-07, 12:49 PM	Cure spells do positive energy damage.Only to creatures that are damaged by the positive energy effect of a cure spell. If they are not, then the spell is not, for purposes involving that creature, a damage-causing spell. Runestar's point is valid, however. If you allow a cure spell to "crit-heal", why wouldn't you allow a rogue to gain the sneak attack benefit? When you're applying a crit with a weapon, it's about scoring a hit against a particularly vital area according to the PHB glossary, which rogues just happen to be much better at doing in the right circumstances (as per the description of the sneak attack ability on pg 50 of the PHB). If the extra damage in both cases comes from striking a vital area, why would it be any different for healing magic if critical hits applied? This points out one more reason to not allow the "curative coup de grace". Not only is it an automatic critical (with sneak attack), but the target gets a saving throw to avoid being killed outright. If applied to healing, is it an automatic critical with a saving throw to avoid full hit point restoration? If not, you have to explain why it's not having the exact opposite effect of a damage-based coup de grace. However, if it is, then parties are saving a fortune in healing cost, because any creature can voluntarily fail any given saving throw. This means that a four member party with a 375 gp wand of cure minor wounds (half that if they make it themselves) can fully heal up after the fight, regardless of how badly they'd been wounded. The entire party could be sitting at -9 hp so long as the one using the wand had the Die Hard feat, and be back up to their 100+ hp totals in a matter of rounds. Obviously, this is not likely to happen in the middle of combat, but you've just made the post-combat clean-up a lot easier on parties if you allow this.